The Day After Tomorrow
by jtav
Summary: The day before Harmonic Convergence, Asami gives Korra new reason to fight. Or, in which Korra appreciates Asami's brain. Korrasami pre-slash.


"You should tell her! Tear off that leech!" Bolin was trying to whisper, but Korra could hear him from ten meters away. He and Mako were huddled together. Mako's shoulders were knotted, and there was a high spot of color on his visible cheek. If she passed by them now, they would spring apart like low level Triple Threats caught planning a shakedown. Bolin would stammer that everything was absolutely, perfectly fine and there was definitely nothing Korra needed to know. Mako would break into a sweat and nod furiously.

She was starting to suspect the fight she and Mako had had was indeed "that bad." But Harmonic Convergence was tomorrow. Either she and Mako would have time to sort out whatever the real problem was or the world would end. Korra turned on her heel and walked in the opposite direction.

Say what you wanted to about Varrick, but he knew how to build a battleship. The _Zhu Li_ cut through the polar waters as if they were as smooth as glass. You could have a pro-bending match on the deck and never worry about losing your footing because of the wind and waves. Said waves churned beneath her, and the wind made her cheeks burn. It was all so very…alive. Like the universe itself was telling her what was at stake. No pressure or anything.

She wasn't alone at the bow. Asami sat on a metal bench that had been bolted to the deck, pencil in hand and sketchbook in her lap. She was impeccable as always. The one concession to the cold that she'd made was a burgundy scarf that was as dark as you could get without being black. Her hair whipped about her, but Asami seemed oblivious. Oblivious to everything except the sketchbook, in fact. Her hand moved across the paper with crisp, brisk efficiency. Korra watched her. The muscles in Asami's shoulders were tense. Not from nerves like Mako, but like Korra before she went into the Avatar State. Asami was linebending. Put all the lines together, make something real.

Asami looked up with a start. "Korra!" The smile was real, but there was a nervousness in Asami's voice that Korra hadn't heard in six months. Another piece of memory Korra had lost. Something she had done? Loose strands curled next to Asami's lips like an eel-snake. Korra's fingers trembled with the urge to put them back into place. It wasn't right for that perfection to be marred. And Korra wanted to put something right.

But it wasn't her place.

"Korra?" Same word, but a question. She'd let the silence become awkward. Things weren't supposed to be awkward anymore. She was a fully-realized Avatar. Mako was her boyfriend. Asami was her friend. Things were supposed to be simple. Except they weren't.

She mimed brushing her hair away. Asami followed suit, her fingers curling around the errant strands in a graceful motion. The hair was back in place, but the air still felt thick and heavy. Korra gestured to the sketchbook in a last-ditch effort. "What are you working on?"

And that was the right thing to say. Asami's eye's crinkled. And they're bright, whatever shadows that had been haunting her momentarily banished. "Some designs for Future Industries. Something to think about if we get out of this." She closed her eyes and shook her head. "When we get out of this."

"You can think about after?"

"It beats the alternative." She bit her lip, looking at Korra like she looked at the paper. As if she was deciding what Korra really was. Heat spread over Korra's cheeks. Asami never appraised her. She was always open, always friendly, even when they had been rivals. She had no idea what Asami could be looking for, but the other girl smiled at last and Korra exhaled sharply.

Asami's smile was tentative. "Would you like to see?"

Korra nodded. She understood Asami's inventions only a little better than she understood Varrick's but anything was better than thinking about Vaatu or whatever she had done to make everything so awkward. She sat beside Asami and turned the page.

It was like the Spirit World, almost. Here was a car. Here was a road. But nothing like a car or road, The drawings were the mundane things made majestic and terrifying. The road was smooth and wide like glass. Twisting over and onto itself like a knot. The car was smooth and sleek, more cheetah-gazelle than machine. Asami tells her about aerodynamics and how the thing that she calls a highway will reduce commute times by half. Korra understood a word here, a phrase there. She should be adrift in a sea of jargon. But Asami's voice carried her forward. It slipped over and under Korra. There would be a world of marvels, at once safer and more terrible than the one they had now been. The lines were only lines but tomorrow they would be metal and earth. Asami's brilliant mind would make it so.

There were other things that she didn't recognize at all. A great metal dragon hovered in the air above Republic city, Korra frowned. Wait a minute…She did recognize this. "This looks like the spirit dragon that rescued me from Unalaq.Except…metal."

Asami smoothed her hair again. "I heard Tenzin talk about it. And I got inspired. There are still some snags to work out—okay a lot of snags. But in ten years these could replace airships. The biplanes we have now can't travel more than a few dozen kilometers. But these…these could."

"That sounds great," Korra said. And meant it. _This is what I'm for,_ she realized with a shock. The Avatar brought balance. She stopped the Unalaqs and Vaatus who would plunge the world into darkness. A beacon of hope in troubled times. And then people like Asami brought forth the fire that changed the world day in and day out. She took one of Asami's gloved hands in hers and squeezed with as much reassurance and she could muster. "The day after tomorrow you can start work."

Asami squeezed back. "The day after tomorrow."

They had to believe in that.


End file.
